by Lissa Kasey
Seiran could connect with the earth elemental, but Gabe could feel the familiar cool gaze of an old friend. Death as powerful as earth, a polar opposite of life. It was why Seiran and Gabe balanced so well. Had he known that at the time? A vague memory tugged at Gabe’s brain, that yes, he had recognized the draw of life.
His sire had ensured he had a healthy fear of witches in his first few years of rebirth. She hadn’t really known then, what he could do. Only that the blood of witches could make a vampire more powerful. She didn’t want him to have that kind of power. But when the magic of the dead began to awaken in his bones, morphing with intensity as it lay in forced dormancy, he’d realized his true potential. He also understood why it terrified her so much, as it did most of the world now. Once again, he could feel that old tingle of magic building within, as though too long unused and ready to rain down fire and brimstone.
All vampires had some death magic, part of their reanimation, mostly. But Gabe had never been much like the rest of his brethren.
“Is this some kind of old graveyard?” Gabe asked. Too many bones to be natural. The stain of blood so vast it would take centuries to fade.
Page shook his head. “No. I don’t know? I feel something? I thought it was just my blood, Steve had been demanding it for a while. Claiming he needed it to control the golem. I gave him vials. But it’s bigger than that.”
It was. And Page was a baby witch who was only beginning to grasp what he was. Would be a shame to lose that power so soon. “He probably did need your blood at first to control the golem. Doesn’t sound like he was a necromancer or a summoner.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know what that second one is. His family has earth powers. Not as strong as the Rous, but powerful. The previous Pillar of Earth was one of theirs.”
“You are a summoner, Page. One who manipulates souls and spirits. One who can call demons to this world.”
Page gasped. “I would never… I didn’t mean to… I thought I was…”
“It’s a part of necromancy. But a necromancer can’t put a soul in a body. Most magic can sever the tie between a mortal shell and the immortal soul, be it human or vampire. But putting them in the golem? That is not a necromancer skill.”
Animating a golem didn’t usually take a soul. Though death was required to charge it. Golems were animated by intent, fueled by death magic. One specific goal for it to focus on at almost demonic strength. Gabe remembered that now and wondered if there were still any texts about it.
“I am a necromancer,” Gabe said as he put his hands to the ground, digging his fingers into the soil to reach the cool touch of his power through the earth. Much more than animal bones, though those were plentiful. This felt similar to the killing field they’d found of vampire bodies, only older, the bodies partially reclaimed in some spots, and none nearly as fresh, other than Steve. Interesting.
Page shivered. “What are you doing? I feel it…”
“Waking the dead,” Gabe said. He rolled the magic up, the buckets of it still dripping and sloshing through him like waves hitting a shore, and layered it over the ground. The spirits of these beings were gone. Unlike the vampires, they were completely empty. But humans didn’t have revenants to hold the monster inside. They moved on quickly, which left what remained as easy puppets. It wouldn’t be much, bones weren’t very frightening, but maybe enough to terrify the witches and buy them time?
Gabe shoved his will into the ground, spreading out the magic, using Seiran’s blood as a boost, and the ground began to move. Not from earth magic, but the crawling of dead things from their graves. It ached within Gabe, like a muscle too long clenched and gone unused. Had he suppressed it that long?
This power was not welcomed in the modern world. He recalled that clearly now. When was the last time he’d stretched those icy fingers to touch the bones of mortal existence? The rush of it ran through him in an energizing thrill as the remains began to pop from the ground, latching together with the last remains of mortal energy to become almost zombies, or mostly whole skeletons. Not possible in scientific terms as there was little tissue to hold them together. His magic didn’t care. They knit themselves together, digging their way out of the ground and rising up to surround them.
Page curled up in a ball behind Gabe, shivering and repeating, “Holy fuck.”
The last to rise was Steve. His body jerking upward as though pulled by strings rather than human muscle and bone, which he still had. A broken neck. Gabe could tell that now from the odd angle of his head. The soul long gone meant he’d been dead likely more than a few days.
Gabe looked at Page. He could have killed him, though Page was a smaller man than Steve had been. But stealth was a good equalizer. It would mean that they had both misread Page, though Gabe was rarely wrong about anyone. At least as long as his brain wasn’t clouded by magic or the revenant.
He recalled Tresler’s bond beginning to tie him up in magic built through small doses of his blood. The tainted bottled blood had taken years to build up a bond. It had been like slugs slowly growing through his system. And now that he remembered, he really wanted a hot shower. Or some type of dialysis of his blood to clear out any residue of that monster.
The dead continued to rise. Way too many for some random cabin in the woods. Dead only a few months old? A few years at most. The sheer number was insane. Not even a few dozen, but over a hundred at least. The further he let his power reach, the more bodies he found. Animals closest to the cabin, but as he pressed further, more and more humans, even a few witches. He could separate those by the way they swayed in his magic. Not as still as humans, as witches, even after death, could turn into feral, flesh eating things. He’d have to keep an eye on them. Another necromancer would have to pull them free from his grasp to really shift them, but he had no idea if there were necromancers in this coven or not.
“Why are there so many?” Page whispered and the ground continued to spit them out. They formed a barrier of skeletons, and rotting corpses, encircling them in all directions as the trees Seiran had woven into a magic ward, disintegrated.
“Someone has been murdering a lot.” The ground was charged with it. Blood, death, violence, perhaps torture, obvious as some of the dead were missing parts, limbs, the back of a skull, even half a ribcage in one nearby case Gabe could see. Holy fuck, was right.
Had they begun here? Murdered animals first to add to their power, then stepped up to humans and witches? Perhaps that hadn’t been enough so they’d begun experimenting on vampires? It was dizzying. The power wasted, the sheer number of corpses. Not the work of one barely legal witch, of that much Gabe knew.
He poured his strength into the growing surge of dead, shielding them even as they continued to rise and spread out further, as the tree barrier fell, baring them all to the violence that awaited them beyond it. Gabe couldn’t see the witches or the police, but he could hear them all now. The chanting, and the murmur of voices from the police. No warnings issued to stop or even a chance of being taken in alive.
And wasn’t that infuriating? There they stood, face to face with a legion of the dead who’d been slaughtered by what Gabe was certain was a fairly sizable coven, and their only goal was killing Page? Maybe Seiran and himself as well? By design, or pure stupidity?
The revenant rose to the surface of his conscious. Not taking over, but adding a red haze to his sight. It was a bit of a welcome feeling, that zinging power and absolute give no fucks mentality the revenant provided. He had learned to balance this power centuries ago, teetering on the edge of the darkness taking over.
Until he’d been forced to swallow it and exist in a world that found him terrifying.
Maybe it was time to remind them why they’d been afraid. It seemed like they’d been fucking with Seiran for long enough. The possessive monster in his gut told Gabe that Seiran was his, and even the revenant recognized that. Good. He was done with all of this bullshit.
A raven landed on Steve’s shoulder,
staring down at Gabe who was still crouched low, giving no one with a gun a target. The magic would have to get through his barrier of death, and death was an old friend of Gabe’s.
The raven leapt down, landing near Gabe and trotting over, changing as it went, into Sam. That was something Gabe didn’t remember.
“Don’t stare at my naked ass. There’s obviously some shit you didn’t tell us,” Sam said waving a hand at the dead amassed around them. “How bad is Ronnie hurt?”
“Bleeding, but healing.” His heartbeat was strong and Gabe felt every pulse of it through their bond. “The Goddess is shoved back for now.”
“Yeah, I guessed that from the level five hurricanes that popped up all over the globe and then suddenly vanished. Fucking witch bullshit.” He looked at Page. “Don’t suppose this is the baby witch causing this mess?”
“He’s a summoner,” Gabe said. “Better with souls than with the dead. Created the golem, but it sounds like the family was blackmailing him for blood to work spells with.”
Sam sighed. “More bullshit we didn’t know. The witches want you all dead.”
“I’m not afraid of witches,” Gabe said. He could call this army to move, and even begin to awake more if needed. The power stretched, unlimited, his bond to Seiran fueling him with energy from the rotating of the earth. “This is a lot of dead for some random family hunting cabin,” Gabe pointed out. “Seem a little suspicious? Do you see the lines of magic etched into the cabin?” Behind them the cabin could no longer be seen through the stretch of the dead.
“I saw it from above. Hate this witch bullshit,” Sam snarled. “A lot of fucking dead. But we only have a few options here. Either you go all lord of the darkness and command the zombie army to attack their ass, or we negotiate.”
“Is there anyone to negotiate with? Any sanity left among the Dominion?”
Sam’s gaze fell to Page. “We could give them the witch.”
“Not an option. If they want Page, they’ll want Seiran too. This whole thing feels like a set up. Or at the very least, an opportunity to smack him down.”
“It probably is. They’ve tried to oust Rou from the board every year for as long as he’s been on the board. A thousand written warnings, all bullshit. If it weren’t for him being a true scion to the earth, and his ties to the vampires and the fae? They might have already removed him.” Sam glanced back toward where Gabe could hear the witches and police gathered. It sounded like more activity. “Tanaka’s here.”
An instant bit of rage surfaced in Gabe, strong enough he had to work hard to keep himself from leaping over the group and eviscerating her.
“Woah, big guy, rein in the demon. She’s on our side.”
“She’s not,” Gabe corrected. “I remember…”
“Yeah, shitty mother. Pretty good grandmother though. Has cut ties to the rest of their horrific family and spent the last decade doing everything she can to protect all her grandkids. Even Kaine.”
“Yet she won’t protect Seiran? His kids need him.” Fuck, that was a brutal wave of memory falling into place. The manipulation, the way she’d abused Seiran, beaten him down. Gabe hated that he hadn’t been able to stop it. Negotiating for the twins had bought them time, and Gabe had been planning to take them all away, even if that meant rising again as he once had.
“She will, and is. She’s here to negotiate.”
No. Gabe wasn’t playing that game again. “Tell them to clear a path. That is the only choice. Clear a path or I will clear one myself.”
“Let her through, just her,” Sam said. “Let her see for herself that it is you who wields the power, not the baby witch over there.”
They all thought this was Page? Gabe really had held this in too long. He stretched out his magic, using the dead to see beyond the circle and the swell of cops beyond, perched behind police cars, weapons drawn. As if a gun could sever the tie between Seiran and the earth, or Gabe and Seiran. The witches were doing spells, though none seemed to be taking hold. Something about the land was breaking the magic. Interesting.
Gabe sent out a ripple of energy toward a group of witches who were trying to create a spell through joint effort. He felt their spell shatter like glass, broken by death, like most everything of mortal creation was.
Huh. Fascinating.
He found Tanaka standing not far from the farthest outer layer of his wall of the dead. She didn’t appear afraid, only resolved. He’d kill her if he had to, even if that meant facing Seiran’s wrath. Sometimes family was toxic no matter how much a person loved them. And Gabe knew Seiran loved his mom, even though Seiran knew how terrible the things she’d done were.
“Tanaka Rou,” Gabe called, using the dead to carry his voice. “You alone, are allowed to pass.”
Silence fell over the crowd beyond the barrier. And Tanaka hesitated as the first row of skeletons moved to let her pass. She’d have to walk the gauntlet, passing row by row of the dead until she reached them, the shambling bodies filling in behind her. If Gabe felt one ounce of her was willing to sacrifice her son, he’d show her how horrible a death could be at the hands of zombies.
She stepped forward. A wild array of gasps and shouts came from the group beyond. Concern for her, or just outrage? Gabe didn’t much care anymore.
When Tanaka passed through the final barrier, Gabe studied her. Noted how tired she looked. Sam had returned to his raven form, and was observing in silence with dark and intense eyes.
“Is my son still alive?” Tanaka asked.
“He is,” Gabe agreed. “And I plan for him to stay that way.”
She blinked at him, gaze studying Page for a moment, and seeming to take in Seiran’s prone form, but deep breathing. “This is your power?”
“I am death,” Gabe said. “Yet I killed none of those around me. Care to explain how there are so many bodies?”
Tanaka looked around at the group, taking in the different states of decomposition and decay, and then finding Steve. “There have been rumors.”
“About a coven slaughtering hundreds?”
“There are always rumors,” Tanaka said. “Would you let Seiran’s investigators in? To document?”
“Would it make a difference? Isn’t it the standard of the Dominion to kill things it can’t control? That would include Page, Seiran, and myself, right?”
“Normally,” Tanaka said.
“But I am not subject to your rule. I am not a witch.”
“You are a necromancer.”
“Which your people claim don’t exist because you fear us so much. Meanwhile, the true terror is the Pillar you’ve all decided wasn’t worth the time. He just saved your asses from world annihilation by the earth elemental.”
“I did feel that. Every earth witch on the planet felt Her… discomfort.”
Discomfort. What a fucking joke. Gabe shook his head, done with all this. He stood, and lifted Seiran into his arms. If they had guns aimed, they’d better hope it was a bazooka. Not much else could put him back in the ground. Not even the witch in front of him. She was strong, but not nearly the supernatural power Seiran had.
“We’re done,” Gabe said. “With the Dominion, and all this bullshit.”
“Is that what Seiran wants?”
“Seiran never wanted any of this. He wanted a quiet life. Now he just wants to keep his family safe. This,” Gabe waved at their surroundings, “was what you wanted for him. Power. Status. Though no one fucking sees him for what he is.”
“You don’t either. You’ve been gone too long. You can’t possibly know what is best for him.”
Gabe snorted. “Fuck you, Tanaka. Some Dominion coven murdered hundreds of humans and vampires, and we are the problem? Push this and it becomes war between us and the witches.”
“You speak for yourself, or for the vampires? I don’t think Hart would appreciate that.”
“If you think Hart has more vampires under his control than I do, you’re mistaken. War between witches and vampires, Tanaka. Or let us
go in peace. Find out who created this,” Gabe pointed to the mass of bodies. “Because it wasn’t us.”
“I don’t have that power.”
“Then what use are you?” He snapped. “What are you even fucking doing here?”
She opened her hand and a rock fell to the ground, crystal looking, and Gabe worried it was some kind of spell or something, feared he’d let her in only for her to trick them all. But the rock flashed with a tiny flicker of magic, and out rolled a small brown cat. The cat darted toward Gabe, too small to cause damage, but it grew as it moved, turning from cat to child in a shift more flawless than Sam’s had been to the raven.
A little boy who looked ten or so, with a mop of bright red curls, and Seiran’s sapphire eyes stared up at Gabe. He was fully dressed and not at all human. Gabe blinked down at the boy, who he had heard of, but hadn’t met. “Kaine?”
“You have to follow,” Kaine said in a whisper. “Stay close, else you’ll get lost.” He smiled at Page. “You too, Page. Papa would want you safe.” Kaine reached Gabe’s side and touched Seiran’s face.
“Follow where?” Gabe wondered. But Kaine held out a hand, and a rip in the fabric of reality appeared. A flickering of what Gabe pulled from Seiran’s mind, rather than his own. The veil between worlds. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” People went through the veil and never came back. Even Gabe knew that.
“You have to,” Kaine said. “I’ll hold Page’s hand, and touch Papa’s leg. Don’t stop touching me, no matter what you see inside. Okay?”
This was a really bad idea. Gabe waited for Tanaka to protest or something. But she’d brought Kaine to them. For this reason? She put her hands to the ground and the earth flowed upward, swallowing up all traces of Seiran’s blood. Gabe should have thought of that. If he’d left traces of Seiran the witches could have used it to hex him.
“Can you tie that one to me?” Tanaka asked, pointing to Steve. “I’d like to question him.”